


the experiments

by anicula



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-05-17 05:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14825769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anicula/pseuds/anicula
Summary: a gathering of (unrelated) ficlets





	1. trying to throw our lives away

**Author's Note:**

> an easter hunt gone awry

_it’s a quarter past midnight_

“How in the world did you convince your mom to do this?”

Miz’s voice sounded at once both too far away and too close. Aquaria closed her eyes. It made the dots disappear but it didn’t solve the sound problem. 

“She thinks we’re doing it during the morning,” she paused. “Or did it in the morning.”

Miz’s answering cackle was too loud, this Aquaria could say for sure, in the silent grove they had found themselves in. The snickers and shushing of the other girls had faded away the further and longer they had walked. And now, all they had was the rustling of the trees as the wind blew and the snaps of twigs as they tried to make themselves comfortable on the grass that was more mud than actual greenery. 

“We sure did,” Miz slurred out between huffs of laughter. Aquaria heard the clink of bottles as Miz shuffled herself closer. 

When she found enough energy to open her eyes again, Miz’s wonky eyebrows were covering most of her view. 

“I hate your eyebrows,” she said slowly, taking care to not slur her words. Or maybe they were slurred. She couldn’t completely feel her tongue. And the moon looming behind Miz’s head was blinding. 

“Could you be less,” Miz leaned back to take a breath and held her finger up to stop Aquaria from interjecting before leaning closer, “of a cunt. For like. A minute.”

Aquaria could feel her face drawing together in a frown. “No.” It was less than she’d meant to say but her thoughts were escaping her faster than her words. 

Miz let out a burst of laughter before bending closer to kiss Aquaria. Her mouth tasted like cleaning fluid from all the alcohol they had drunk but it was still warm and sent a thrill through Aquaria like she was Mia fucking Thermopolis.  

“You’re such a goddamn idiot,” Miz said out loud when they pulled apart.

“You’re an idiot,” Aquaria returned. She felt around for the bottles of tequila only to have her hand slapped away by Miz.

“Don’t touch that hair bitch.” This was soften by her drawing Aquaria’s hand to her mouth and pressing enough kisses to it that her palm felt tacky with lipstick when she was finally freed. 

“Then don’t take your hair off and put the booze so far away.”

Aquaria pushed herself upright again. The bottles were sitting at the bottom of a tree that required getting up to get to. She sighed. If she was going to have to get up, she was going to finish the rest of the damn game. 

“Where are you going?” Miz was looking at her through one half opened eye. 

“To win.” That is if she could manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other in a straight line. Her knees felt weak when she actually started walking but there were trees aplenty in central park for her to lean against as she made her way to the closest lamp post. She could hear Miz getting up behind her, somehow moving faster and steadier than she was by the sound of the thumps that were getting closer and closer like some soft muted indie version of jaws. 

“Or the trashed drag version of jaws.” 

Oh she must have said that out loud. She draped her arm over Miz who had saddled up next to her and was now a warm presence at her side in her journey to the stupid lamp post and who didn’t seem to care about being a human arm rest. 

“I resent every part of that.”

“I don’t care,” Aquaria returned, punctuated by a jaw cracking yawn. She shifted her arm so she could lay her head down on Miz, hindering their process, yet too tired from all the alcohol to care. 

Miz patted her hair softly, following it with a kiss on Aquaria’s forehead. “How about we find a cab and finish tomorrow?”

“That sounds like a horrible idea.” They were close enough to the path again that she could hear an occasion shriek. And then, a sound suspiciously close to a moan, suspiciously close to them. 

“Yeah I don’t think anyone’s going to finish this easter egg hunt anything soon,” Miz snickered as the moaning only proceeded to get louder as the footpath got more well lit. 

“Anytime,” Aquaria corrected. But she had to concede that her ankles were bending over weirdly with each step that she took. 

“Now if only you could do that sober.” 

“That is bullying. No,” Aquaria paused, “this is bullying. A hate crime. I hate you.”

“Right.” The look Miz was sending her was entirely too fond, so Aquaria abandoned the eye contact in favour of laying her head back down on to Miz’s very comfortable shoulder. 

“Shut up.”

 

 

_addendum - it’s seven twenty_

“There should be at least one on Gay Street,” Aquaria flipped through the little booklet her mom had handed her, “because that is exactly the kind of terrible joke she would enjoy.”

“And?” Miz Cracker prompted when Aquaria fell silent for too long. 

“Possible some at Industry, Hardware, and the Ritz,” she continued listing. “And I feel like there should be some at the Metro, though she didn’t write any hints down for that one.”

Miz was bent over her ever present notebook, jotting all the locations down. 

“And then a fuckton in central park because she’s actually sadistic.”

 

 

_addendum - it’s half past nine_

“Oh that’s so cute!” Thorgy had enthused and promptly invited herself along when they checked the Metropolitan. 

And then it snowballed and suddenly, everyone’s clamoring to take a picture of all the pages in the booklet to look for the small plastic dollar store eggs. 

It takes too much self control for Aquaria to not snap at them. So she gets herself up and out. Miz Cracker follows with two bottles she had swiped along the way from some unsuspecting tables. 


	2. because you’re mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little pre-show warm up

There’s something so electric about the air when the lights start flickering and the DJ starts playing music. When the night first starts and the people are still at home. A taste - touch of intimacy surrounds them, bound by worn down bricks, a hint of musk from age, from the bodies that used to be there and here and now just the lingering of not perfume, not sweat, not much of anything at all. 

The golden hour when their makeup’s perfect and the skirts are perfectly pleated, not a strap out of place, not a heel unaccounted for. All the lace perfectly pressed and hair perfectly tossed. 

She runs her fingers through the lovely curls of the silvery blonde wig Aquaria’s chosen for the night. Each curl so lovely, so soft, so- 

She gives it a light tug. A hint of promise for later. Aquaria only shoots her a coy smile from beneath her lashes where she’s fixing her already immaculate lips. 

“No touching,” Aquaria murmurs, “That’s not allowed.” She’s demur in her delivery, head tilted down, a little shy with her shoulders curved in. She looks breathtaking in the watery, rosy streaks of light that filter through the grimy blinds. 

Miz wants to break her. 

Crumple her up, smear her lipstick all over and shove her down. Ruin that perfect skin with raw red marks. Chew her up and spit her out heaving and whining, breathless and  _oh fuck._ Miz blinks slowly, sinking back to the present by the warmth of Aquaria’s hand covering hers. 

There’s a knowing glint in her eyes, something playful about her mouth when she says, “Don’t you have a gig to do?”

It takes a few more moments for Miz to fully register that her hand is spanning the full width of Aquaria’s neck, mimicking the choker that Aquaria’s chosen for the night, like she’s following a blueprint for sinners. 

She clears her throat, parched and dry without even realizing it. “Yeah,” comes out hoarse. She shakes her head and makes her way for the door, turning her back on an Aquaria with a too smug smile powdering her face.


	3. you bring me to my knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the slow rupturing of a relationship

It doesn’t end with a bang.

It doesn’t end in a whimper.

It ends in a series of missed brunch dates. Missed phone calls. Messages left on read for days stretching into weeks, with lukewarm apologies that leave a bitter taste on his tongue. A rising sense of unease in his gut that builds and builds with no where to go, no exit to the left please ma’am.

No explanation. But complete unwillingness to press for more. Hesitant to push for more because a little is still better than none at all.

A picture is worth a thousand words but pictures are all they have now. Official shiny things taken by aspiring artists paying their weight in gold to get certified by a panel of wizened white men.

The screen of his phone is glaringly white and bright in the pitch black of his room. He really shouldn’t have gotten those blackout curtains. But they weren’t his idea. Not much was, now that he’s looking back. He’s more easily moved than he thought. His days, weeks - he pauses with his finger poised on the send button - his  _years_  had been defined for him. Defined by  _him_.

A tiny whelp of a thing. Barely legal and bravely venturing into the big city for the first time. But somehow managing to be more than Max had ever been in all his three decades in the same hunting grounds.

More  _have you tried this?_  More  _I want to see every inch of this stupid park even if I die doing it_  proclaimed loudly and insistently in the aisle of a Duane Reade.

And as Max throws his phone across his bed and sees his bookshelves, it’s been a lot more  _this public library is so much better than the one at home_  too.

There’s been so much more more’s that without his constant presence, it’s hard not to feel. Less. Less than living and thriving and total uncontrolled joy in everything and anything.

He thinks that if he concentrate hard enough he could smell the musk of the books, pages yellow from age and wrinkled with use. He thinks of how they’re probably already overdue. By several weeks at least.

Life goes so much faster without him. But at the same time, so agonizingly slow. The sunsets and sunrises start blurring into one. The hour hand on the clock never seems to move. The snow starts falling before he’s even switched over his spring coats. He finishes his dinner without even realizing he had started making it.

Cleanup takes a lifetime.

He understands the matrix in all its entirety for the first time in his life. How things slow down. How red lights never change. He starts crossing without waiting.

The static never leaves his ears. The heaviness in his limbs are making their home there and ready to never leave.

And they never do. 

Through the rain and the shine. Through late night taxi rides. All the way across the country. To the eternal sun.

And then it’s like he’s at an eye exam. The light shining into his eyes so brightly that he can’t keep them open without them watering. His heart starts jackhammering in his chest so loud he wonders if the mic can pick it up. Colour starts coming at him fast and there’s no where to turn. No will to turn.

Kiss kiss. Both cheeks.

A soft, pleasant -

 _Bonjour_.


	4. you just wanna grow old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> f/f: a moody kind of roadtrip

Aquaria woke with a start. The setting sun blinked back, bright against her sleep blurry vision. She felt oddly warm, on the brink of sweat, and her skin was almost one with the leather of her seat. She shifted in place, a little disoriented and her heart racing from whatever it was that woke her.

The view outside the car was wholly unfamiliar, though the car itself was recognizable enough. The worn down leather, the radio that never worked, and the bluetooth speakers sitting obtrusively on the dashboard – those Aquaria knew as well as the back of her hand. The weird desert cacti on either sides of the road, no – the road the car was _on_ – was distinctly alien – as was the lack of noise and the lack of another sitting in the driver’s seat.

Aquaria rubbed her eyes, wanting them to focus but not enough to commit to trying to find her glasses in the wilderness that was the glove box. When she gave up, the car still held a population of one and she had to resign herself to actually physically getting up to hunt down its owner.

The air outside was arid and she could feel the sunburn setting in within seconds. There was no sign of life besides what looked suspiciously like a snake coiling around one of the tires. The only hint of human life was a rickety, sun-bleached sign that promised fresh strawberries if you would just walked in its direction for oh, maybe an hour or so.

Aquaria sighed. The sunburn was inevitable now. Miz was a hundred percent the kind of person to accidentally walk into a white van if it promised her the right kind of organic, hand fed nonsense. She followed the stupid signs over the hill.

 

The diner was funky. For all the different definitions of funky. It looked like it had been there since the 50’s and it smelled like it had been there since the 50’s, like the air freshener had run out sometime in ’56 and no one bothered to do anything about it.

Aquaria loved it.

Miz looked dubious. “Are you sure this is what you want for dinner?”

“Yes.” Aquaria held the door open with a sweeping gesture. “We can’t eat, pray, love our way through America without the quintessential American experience.”

“Eat, pray, love, not eat, pray, die,” Miz murmured under her breath as she brushed past Aquaria. Her smile at the waitress was of the customer service variety.

As they sat, Aquaria had to cede that the restaurant could be cleaner when the menus they were handed had dirt laminated on to the pages. Miz kept her comments to herself and ordered a milkshake for them to share.

The laughter when Aquaria could only choke down one wimpy fry was barely covered up with a cough.

 

She loved fresh sheets the best. Fresh sheets after showering off a full day of sweat and grim when her skin was still cool to the touch and her muscles relaxed from the spray. Better still when she was sprawled across the covers and could not so stealthily watch Miz check their itinerary for the next day. Bathed in the warm glow of the evening, she was glowing, a Sofia Coppola movie all on her own.

“Do you want to take the longer trail through the park tomorrow?” Miz interrupted her lazy musings with a sideways glance, a hand poised above her small notebook.

Aquaria shrugged. “Don’t particularly care – do you want to?” And then she rephrased it when Miz’s forehead creased in thought, no doubt weighing her wants with their needs, “We can do it. The check in for tomorrow’s super flexible right?”

Miz hummed. “But did you bring hiking shoes?”

“I got sneakers,” Aquaria broke off to yawn, “But it’s good enough. I’d rather die than wear something brown and mesh.”

The snort she got out of Miz was very satisfying and she burrowed deeper into the sheets.

 

The fresh sea salt breeze was a welcomed relief after several days of middle America summer heat. Aquaria had her head tilted back, the roof finally rolled back to expose the bright brilliant blue of the cloudless sky.

Miz was paying more attention to the road than warranted for a stretch of pavement completely devoid of cars for miles behind and before them. The only thing betraying her indifference was her hand, neatly tucked beneath Aquaria’s. Her fidgeting was incurable even with the weight of Aquaria’s hand on top.

She did her best to smooth the tension out of Miz’s hand.

 

The way the room worked was that – one bed was for eating on, the second was for sleeping on, and two of them in one room was for their parents to sign off on.

In hindsight, it really was for the best. Aquaria was utterly incapable of eating fruit without smushing parts of it on the sheets. Miz was all too capable of smushing whatever she wanted into the sheets – plant based or not. And nobody liked sleeping in a wet spot – sticky or otherwise.

The lady behind the desk looked none the wiser to their scheme, her demeanour friendly and open as she handed them the cards for their room and wished them a good stay.

Miz was jittery all the way up in the elevator. Senses on high alert and military precision in how she unpacked. Both beds artfully disheveled.

Aquaria watched from the window, propped up on cushions stolen from the couch. She kept watch for black SUVs driving up to the hotels.

The _we’re downstairs, are you guys here yet?_ text comes in after the sun has set.

“We should change.” Aquaria dragged herself up from her perch and pulled Miz along with her.

 

Their parents were stressed and tanned as only New Yorkers forced to vacation in California could be. Their mothers with their pearls and seltzer. Their fathers sucked into too much business to put up the front of a real vacation. The pleasantries go quick and soon it’s almost a regular dinner except for the sun and the sea and the fresh cracked lobster in front of them.

 

Aquaria pushed her shades up, using them to keep her hair out of her face. The wind was relentless in driving the waves to crash onshore.

“I would ask why you love storms so much if I didn’t think I would hate the answer.” Miz’s voice was clear, cutting through the thunder booming above.

There was no lightening yet. But Aquaria could taste the promise of it in the air.

Miz, despite her reservations, was standing just behind her, patient and warm in the quickly sinking temperatures. She did, however, keep their hands folded together in a vice like grip.

“Storms are very calming,” Aquaria looked at the dark grey sky, “Better than meditation,” she glanced at Miz from the corner of her eye.

Miz’s scoff was barely audible above the water. “You would say that.” But she fell silent after that. Silent and reflective in her silence and the way her brows drew together in thought. Aquaria turned back to the large mass of water aggressively gaining speed and land only to retreat moments later.

 

The road through Canada was wild and untamed. The paved roads through the dense, green foliage were the only sign of civilization, everything else was a thick, dense blanket of green as far as the eye could see.

With the windows down, Aquaria could swear she’d never truly breathed air up until this point. The cool, crispness in the air was reminiscent of autumn without the ash and smog of the city. It was all the romance of fall with the promised beginnings of spring and nothing of the rain and cold that accompanied each.

“Happy?” Miz’s voice was muted, her prodding delivered in the softest cadence.

Aquaria looked over. “Are you?”

Miz shrugged. But her shoulders were free from tension and the tight lines that mapped out her face were barely visible.

They sped all the way through, unchallenged by cars and pushed by the wind threading through their hair.


	5. you could break my heart in two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m/m: not not an argument

“But what do  _you_  want?”

“I don’t know!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “I’m not good at- at talking or listening or whatever else you need or want t-to  _feel_  in conversations.” His hands grasped at the air helplessly. “I’m not good at a lot of things surprisingly - and I  _know_  that. But I just-” he broke off with an overwhelming need to stomp on the ground like a petulant child, nearly would have if the ground wasn’t all ice and slush. If only words could be melded together through the sheer force of physicality then he would - wanted to - keep his hands fisted and break the nearest thing near him, enough disorder out to generate order within for once in his life.

Max’s ice cold wind bitten hands caught his, bringing him down from swinging himself at the nearest solid surface, the smoker’s red a bright, loud stop sign curling around his own translucent map of veins and arteries. “Gio.”

Gio. Not Aquaria, not even Aqua. Just Gio, in a low gravelly voice with no hint of the bubblegum pink dress and the platinum blonde mountain on his head. It was something achieved in the dark, after a pack was finished and even the sheets smelled of smoke. It was something that had slipped through his fingers like water from a tap, a small taste of solace before it disappeared like a dream.

He sucked in a breath, the chill of the air burning up his lungs. It was hard to focus with a layer of something smearing his vision into liquid mess of colors.

“Yes?” His voice cracked in another stunning display of betrayal from his body, already shaking so hard Max’s hands were vibrating with him.

“I want you to know,” and there Max pulled them close, nose to nose, their eyes so close they were cross eyed, “that I love you.” Max’s eyes looked impossibly dark in the terrible yellow light of the streetlamps. It was hard to feel anchored to the ground beneath him. “And I am willing to wait for you to figure out what you want - if,” and there he paused for a moment and continued, “ _if_  that is what you want.” They were so close Gio could feel Max’s eyelashes on his cheek. “It doesn’t have to be right now. It doesn’t even have to be tomorrow. I’m not a coupon, you don’t have to redeem me by the end of the month.”

Gio let out a weak laugh that was more air than actual laughter. His head felt light. His hands were warm.

“Would you like that?” Max prompted with a soft nudge.

Gio sniffed, tugging his hand loose to wipe his face. His nod was small but Max had the eye of an eagle. The tight line of Max’s shoulders wasn’t obvious until they relaxed with a soft exhale.

“Okay,” a quiet offering into the small, sacred space between them, “alright,” a firm reaffirmation.

Gio stayed silent, his legs were unsteady, no longer supported by adrenaline. The tip of Max’s nose was cold when he pressed a quick kiss to the side of Gio’s mouth. It was light and fleeting, completely incomparable to the feeling of absolute surety and stability in light of understandings exchanged and feelings acknowledged. 

He pushed himself forward to rectify the problem. The solution presented itself to be messy and wet and most certainly unsuitable for the sidewalks of an all too public street but Gio never counted himself to be a particularly attentive student anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my head this all starts with gio sneaking out of a one night stand, on paper - well


	6. tumblr outta bed

He laid Max’s hand flat on his chest, warm palm to chilled skin.

“Are you scared?” he asked in a mock russian accent, the one that was so bad that it shouldn’t have sounded anywhere near that alluring. But Gio had a way of making things work with his soft drawl.

“Do I look scared?” Maintaining eye contact was a feat Max never knew he had trouble with. Regardless, he persisted.

A cheshire smile broke out over Gio’s face. “A little.”

He slid their intertwined hands down slowly, inch by inch, reveling in the flicker of light playing across the pale canvas of his bared torso. Max didn’t feel in complete control of his limbs, his mind felt like it had floated away somewhere between the stage and the dark hallway that led to the private room. He would blame it on the drink, but he hadn’t touched a drop of liquor all day. His hand flexed mindlessly when Gio reached the soft dip of his abdomen.

Delight danced across Gio’s face. “Are we reaching a breakthrough?”

Max found his throat too dry to answer. Gio didn’t care. He lifted himself up onto Max’s seat, his knees braced on either side of Max.


End file.
